Baldur Brönnimann regularly conducts the major orchestras and new music ensembles around the world and has recently been appointed Music Director of the Colombian National Symphony Orchestra. Renowned for his mastery of complex contemporary scores, Brönnimann returns to English National Opera in September 2009 with Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre.
In Europe, Brönnimann has worked regularly with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with his latest concerts in 2009 receiving particular critical acclaim: “the SCO's concert … was an enthralling magical mystery tour of the world of sonority… there is nothing unfamiliar about Kodaly's gipsy-inspired Dances of Galanta or Bartok's great masterpiece, the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste. But one does not often hear them like this… atmospherically and lucidly conducted by Baldur Bronnimann.” He made his debut with the Bergen Philharmonic with Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin at the Bergen International Festival in 2008, receiving an immediate re-invitation for the following year and he is due to return again in 2011.
In April 2009 Brönnimann made his debut with the Seoul Philharmonic where he conducted three programmes, one in the main series featuring Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (1919) and de Falla’s Three Cornered Hat and two in Unsuk Chin’s Ars Nova series. His relationship with the Auckland Philharmonia continues with annual visits exploring a broad range of repertoire with soloists such as Midori and Brett Dean, and he recently made a highly successful debut with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
Other recent highlights include performances of Stockhausen’s Gruppen in the underground car park of Porto’s La Casa da Musica, a Birtwistle programme – including Earth Dances - at Italy’s Settembre Musicale 2008, a Thomas Adès programme – including Asyla - at the Stockholm Adès Festival 2009, debuts with the Iceland Symphony and Malmö Symphony Orchestra, and many varied projects with the London Sinfonietta and Klangforum Wien, both of whom he will conduct in their main series next season.
In 2008 Brönnimann made his debut with English National Opera, conducting Olga Neuwirth’s adaptation of David Lynch’s Lost Highway. In September 2009 he returned to make his Coliseum debut with Ligeti’s “anti anti-opera” Le Grand Macabre directed by the Catalan theatre company La Fura dels Baus, and for which he received great critical acclaim.
As Music Director with the Colombian National Symphony Orchestra, Brönnimann brings his renowned fresh approach and energy to much of the core 18th and 19th century repertoire. Now in his second season, his plans include the inauguration of the Colombian National Youth Orchestra, a series of Colombian music from 1810 to 2010 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Independence, a Symphonic Summer Festival, a Schumann series as well as a whole range of educational activities.
Brönnimann is committed to his work with young musicians and in recent seasons has worked with the Australian Youth Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and with many other student and youth ensembles. He is always eager to incorporate educational elements into his engagements and his presentation skills have won him great acclaim all over the world.
Brönnimann trained at the Basel Music Academy and at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he was subsequently appointed Visiting Tutor in Conducting.
Baldur Brönnimann is represented by Intermusica.
February 2010 / 524 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.
Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra / Prokofiev, Weber, Strauss, Respighi
“Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Thursday concert was indeed the grand finale promised for the close of its successful APN News & Media Premier Season.
Baldur Brönnimann was in dashing form from the first bars of Prokofiev's Love for Three Oranges. … the players rose to their dazzling best and the atmosphere in the hall bristled with expectation.
Weber's First Clarinet Concerto proved the indisputable highlight of the evening.
Weber's dramatic opening, with the conductor emphasising the strings' jagged rhythms, soon melted into a yearning solo from Collins' pearly-toned instrument.
The Finale to end all Finales was Respighi's The Pines of Rome, in a rendition that captured all the glory of that great city. Brönnimann's obvious affection for the score meant that its modernist touches registered vividly.”
New Zealand Herald, November 2009
Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra / Berlioz, Sibelius, Debussy
“Conductor Baldur Brönnimann and violist Brett Dean were in total accord for Berlioz's extraordinary roam through an imaginary Alpine setting…
Brönnimann gave full voice to all those quirky and sometimes devious touches that make Berlioz the most radical of all the romantics…
… a glowing account of Pohjola's Daughter. Brönnimann and his musicians invested this rarely heard symphonic poem with a extraordinary cohesion and inevitability…
New Zealand Herald, November 2009
English National Opera / Ligeti, Le Grand Macabre
“…several of the singers made an appreciable mark in a musical performance, under the tight baton of Swiss contemporary music specialist Baldur Brönnimann, that was never short on vigorous attack.
The overall result was musically and dramatically fun, and visually unforgettable.”
Opera News, December 2009
“…if fireworks are what you’re after you won’t be disappointed by what’s on offer.
Just how much Baldur Brönnimann had prepared the difficult score with the ENO Orchestra was always evident. Crisp and clear playing shone through throughout, with good balance between the different orchestral sections and tangible impetus driving the segues between scenes. The brass section in particular sounded wholesome and fiery, with some trumpets and trombones placed up in the top balcony making for occasional and brilliantly disorientating antiphony. The score, following Ligeti’s avant-garde wont, calls for some unorthodox instrumentation: music box, car horns, fire whistles, newspaper, sirens, and crockery in a bag are all used at various points. The hugely expanded percussion section on the night was on top form. When I looked down into the pit a couple of times during the show, the orchestra seemed to be very much enjoying themselves.
As were the audience up above them, who more than a few times on the night were raised to laughter.”
Musicalcriticism.com, September 2009
“Under Baldur Brönnimann, ENO's orchestra realise the score with vivacity and discipline, while Watts, Andersson, Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Bourne and Bottone make the absurdities, exaggerations, uglinesses and angularities of Ligeti's vocal writing sparkle. A production like this only comes along once a decade. Forget the whingeing about English repertoire for English companies. This polyglot extravaganza is a triumph.”
The Independent, September 2009
“Brilliant and witty as a piece of staging, blistering as an ensemble performance, Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre opened at English National Opera on Thursday after enough advance cloaca-and-dagger leakage to very nearly spoil the fun.
No advance publicity, however, conveyed the glorious invention of the music, which glides and cascades as one original idea elides seamlessly with another.
…Baldur Brönnimann conducted with committed dexterity and the orchestra shone.”
The Observer, September 2009
“Dazzlingly staged round a giant, naked, glass fibre woman, whose orifices spew out debauched characters teetering on the brink of Armageddon (or not, as it turns out), Le Grand Macabre launches English National Opera’s season in a style that makes you wonder where the company goes from here.
It’s still an eye-popping, ear-busting show.
Andrew Watts as Prince Go-Go, Pavlo Hunka’s Nekrotzar, Susan Bickley’s Miss Whiplash housewife, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke as a pot-bellied lout: these are standout individuals in an excellent ensemble, expertly conducted by Baldur Brönnimann. Rush to see it. After all, you don’t know how long you’ve got.”
The Times, September 2009
“…an all snorting, all growling orchestra (brilliant under Baldur Bronnimann). Where else will you find a Monteverdian cacophony of motor horns?”
The Independent, September 2009
“Conducting this must be more like directing traffic than an orchestra for much of the time, and the seemingly effortless control exercised by Baldur Brönnimann was matched by the house band’s heroic efforts.
But in truth, the highlight of the show is the show itself.”
Opera Britannia, September 2009
“The production by Alex Ollé and Valentina Carrasco … is spectacular and brought off to what seems perfection. The singers … deal with their many challenges and acting assignments with complete assurance and conviction, and the ENO Orchestra plays brilliantly for Baldur Brönnimann.
The whole moves along with energy; we are after all heading for the apocalypse - the best response, and here a wonderful ending, is to open a bottle of champagne and offer a toast. Cheers! A great start to ENO's new season; something for everyone here.”
The Opera Critic, September 2009
“The ENO Orchestra plays superbly for Baldur Brönnimann, and Ligeti's moments of genius – from the opening car horns to the rapturous closing passacaglia – are as vivid as ever, just as the sly digs at his predecessors, including Monteverdi, Beethoven and Wagner, not to mention the anticipations of Thomas Adès's The Tempest, make their mark, too.”
The Guardian, September 2009
“Baldur Bronnimann conducts a brilliant musical realisation that jostles constantly with the visuals for the centre of attention.”
The Stage, September 2009
“There’s a danger that the visuals will overtake the show, were it not for the magnificence of the music. The real glory of the evening is Ligeti’s incredibly inventive and varied score, superbly played by the ENO orchestra under the baton of Baldur Brönnimann, who conducted last year’s Lost Highway at the Young Vic.
One of the best opera scores of the past few decades, it ranges from the banging and crashing of a whole battery of percussion, to deafening noise, brassy exuberance, classical allusion and the ethereal wispiness for which the composer is probably best known. The glorious second act passacaglia, based on the finale of Beethoven’s Eroica matches anything written for the opera stage in the post-war period.
…the musical performance can’t be faulted and you are unlikely to see or hear anything like it in the opera house. This is an ideal way into contemporary opera and a visit can’t be more highly recommended.”
Whatsonstage, September 2009
Scottish Chamber Orchestra / Hallgrímsson, Kodaly, Bartók
“Colour of a more exuberant sort was to be found in Kodály's Dances of Galánta ... conductor Baldur Brönnimann bringing out the spare, terse qualities of the writing in a performance that captured something of the pungent virtuosity of the Gypsy originals... Again in Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, the emphasis was on the rugged, visceral quality of the music...”
Rowena Smith, The Guardian, 13 May 2009
“…this performance, under the hot baton of Baldur Brönnimann, and coloured by Bayley's cool virtuosity, elicited elusive warmth and strands of sinuous beauty…
“Brönnimann let the Kodály dances state their own riveting case, right up to the point where they release their ultimate euphoria. And in the Bartók, the long, unfolding inevitability of opening fugue gave way to a superbly balanced display of molten tranquillity and dizzy excitement.”
Ken Walton, The Scotsman, 11 May 2009
“…the SCO's concert on Friday night was an enthralling magical mystery tour of the world of sonority… there is nothing unfamiliar about Kodaly's gipsy-inspired Dances of Galanta or Bartok's great masterpiece, the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste. But one does not often hear them like this… atmospherically and lucidly conducted by Baldur Bronnimann.
…As for the Bartok: what a showing it received, with a performance of supreme stealth.”
Michael Tumulty, The Herald, 11 May 2009
English National Opera / Olga Neuwirth’s Lost Highway
"... the performance, marking the start of this month's ENO-Young Vic collaboration, can hardly be faulted. The conductor Baldur Brönnimann controls the mix of live and electronically processed music seamlessly, just as the director Diane Paulus marshals the stage and video action in a slick production."
The Sunday Times, 13 April 2008
"So what of the score? Shreds of Carissimi slide languidly into half-heard lines from a Broadway standard, a Purcellian dying fall, Mahleresque cadences, generic jazz riffs from trumpet and sax, a yawn of slide guitar, skeletal stirrings of percussion, a sudden conflagration of knotted, humid bass, a pregnant wash of ambivalent, green-blue chords. In appropriating other people's songs, Neuwirth is backgrounding herself, but the minutely wrought joins and merges of live and recorded sound are themselves often mesmerising and were, under conductor Baldur Brönnimann and sound-designer Markus Noisternig, immaculately dovetailed."
Independent on Sunday, 13 April 2008
"The music perfectly catches the mood of the original film. In fact, "Lost Highway" is so faithful to Lynch's original ... that one wonders if it would not have been more practical to just to show the film and have it accompanied by this wonderful orchestration (consummately handled by conductor Baldur Brönnimann and his 24-piece orchestra)."
Time Out, 10 April 2008
"Supplemented with guitar, accordion and pre-recorded audio feeds, the orchestra under the direction of Baldur Brönnimann, proves highly adept in producing the teeming, wheezy sounds of urban malaise, now and then stumbling woozily into distorted snatches of popular song before whirling back into the aural world of blood-steeped nighmare."
The London Paper, 9 April 2008
“Wander into the Young Vic for any one of the six sold-out performances and you'll find a living, breathing, hyperventilating evocation of Lynch's inner world. The great thing about Lost Highway – ENO's first collaborative show with the Young Vic – is that it refuses to conform to preconceived notions about music theatre; it isn't governed by rules as to when or where it might be appropriate to speak or sing...
The dialogue itself is hyper-amplified to take on the allusion of a movie soundtrack, while the band (under Baldur Brönnimann) create an extraordinary kind of emotional static – the musique concrète of Hades – that has absorbed the myriad musics of Lynch's world, from popular songs like "Unforgettable" to Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera.”
The Independent, 8 April 2008
“The cast, led by Mark Bonnar and Quirijn de Lang as the two halves of the doppelganger hero, is good; the orchestra, under Baldur Brönnimann, is alert; and the staging by Diane Paulus assembles contemporary clichés without making them seem overly tired.”
Financial Times, 8 April 2008
“Lost Highway is based on the 1997 David Lynch film and endeavours to recreate the surreal, lurid, raunchy world of that psychological thriller. Fusing video, dialogue and music, both live (a 27-piece ensemble ably conducted by Baldur Brönnimann and pre-recorded electronics), Neuwirth captures the menace lurking round every corner.”
Evening Standard, 7 April 2008
"Baldur Brönnimann conducts with authority..."
The Daily Telegraph, 7 April 2008
“Neuwirth uses a volatile mix of 20-piece live band... efficiently conducted by Baldur Brönnimann..."
The Times, 7 April 2008
“Baldur Brönnimann conducts with unfailing zest and panache – the 27-strong ensemble drawn from the ENO Orchestra responding with alacrity, and with the interplay of live and sampled instrumental sound ideally judged for this acoustic. Indeed, as an exemplar of what is possible within the domain of music-theatre, Lost Highway could hardly be improved upon: no-one interested in what such an endlessly re-inventive genre currently has to offer should miss seeing this astounding production.”
Classicalsource.com, April 2008
Royal Northen College of Music / The Marriage of Figaro
"The RNCM prides itself on offering its young artists a genuinely professional taste of performance in its opera productions... Above all, it had great distinction musically, with the orchestra making beautiful sounds under conductor Baldur Brönnimann's expert hands."
Manchester Evening News, December 07
Scottish Chamber Orchestra / MacRae, Schumann, Beethoven
"... a persuasive account of an often-overlooked work [Schumann's Cello Concerto], as was that of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony - a performance full of energy, atmosphere and well-judged lightness."
The Guardian , June 2007
"Contrasting but complimentary strands from strings and wind, cleverly woven by conductor Baldur Brönnimann, evoked the woodlands in MacRae's typical style. ... Baldur Brönnimann controlled the SCO exactly for the opening extended crescendo [of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony]. ... The two succeeding Allegros were brilliant and must have been just as the great master intended."
Scottish Provincial Press, July 2007
Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra: Vero Aotea Series
"Conductor Baldur Brönnimann stirred up all the soul torments of the composer's Byronic hero."
New Zealand Herald , April 2007
"Swiss conductor Baldur played MC and host with a delightful sense of humour that had the audience laughing out loud."
Thread, April 2007
Northern Sinfonia
"Baldur Brönnimann, the young Swiss conductor, was impressively well prepared for the rehearsals, and was evidently committed to understanding the works and offering a good rendition of them. He not only ensured that the notes were accurately placed, but he also engaged with character and expression, which is more than we often get in performances of new music. How reassuring to feel that for the person in charge the new works were not a bothersome distraction from his real job of conducting classical masterpieces, but a central part of what he does. Brönnimann and his band were outstanding in approaching sensitively the two student pieces, Reverberations by Matthew Rowan and Ramses by Kelcey Swain, and in tackling the two hardest challenges of the evening, my Peregrine and Barry's From the Intelligence Park, a hair-raisingly difficult piece to play. It was exhilarating to witness the conductor's pacing of Peregrine, gradually gathering momentum towards and effective dénouement, and their fearless plunging into the angular ensemble unisons of From the Intelligence Park."
Agustín Fernández, composer, following a performance of his works. 15 November 2006
Musikkollegium Winterthur
"Baldur Brönnimann conducted the Musikkollegium Winterthur, achieving great clarity of expression and musical shape, particularly bringing out the dialogue between the wind and strings that Arriaga employs so distinctively. ... The result was an expressive interpretation, in which Brönnimann and the orchestra collaborated well... The conductor balanced the different dynamics with great care and gave a beautiful and moving performance... the rhythmic poise of the orchestra and their conductor was very exciting. Overwhelming!"
Der Landbote, October 2006
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Last Public SSO Studio One Concert
"…an evening of contemporary, cutting-edge Nordic music, conducted with breathtaking clarity and conviction by Baldur Brönnimann"
The Herald, November 2005